Tag: Advent

  • Plenty of Room at the Inn: The Nativity Scene Resurrected | On Being

    We must always be attentive to the edges of our own storytelling. Attractive as it may be to children, and lodged as it may be upon the portrayed scenes of religious Christmas cards, it is simply incorrect to think that Mary and Joseph were forced into a stable. They found shelter in the kindness of…

  • The Original Revolution: Occupy Christmas? (Isaiah 52:7-10)

      I know this is late, but it is the message I gave on Christmas morning December 25, 2011. Isaiah 52:7-10: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” John 1:1; 14 “And the Word became…

  • ‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’ (Luke 1:26ff)

    This is my sermon from December 18. So far this advent we have focused largely on preparation. What is it we prepare for exactly? 2,000 years after Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection, hasn’t it already all happened? Advent means coming, but hasn’t Christ already come again in the resurrection? As Christ-centered Quakers we believe that…

  • Seeing Beyond What We See

    At Camas Friends we are thinking about advent season and how it is connected to our sense of sight this year. Here’s something short I’ve written about it: This advent season we are invited to see the movements of grace all around us. The Christian tradition has for two millenia argued that God once took…

  • Advent Message “Come Be Born in Us” (Luke 1:39-55)

    Today we are three weeks into the advent season preparing for Christ’s coming. Christmas, for Christians, is not simply a remembrance and celebration of history (though it is certainly that), it is more importantly a proclamation of reality. The father of Quakerism, George Fox, wrote in his journal of his present and personal experience of…